Flesh and blood
by MrsCuddles
Summary: "And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you." Set after 2x13
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

* * *

It was late at night. It was dark. Mike was not supposed to be there. Yet, there he was.

Slipping quietly between the glass doors was easy. As he strode through the kitchen, Mike wondered how easily Sid had been able to break in and how easily he could've done the same, again.

There was a deathly silence, broken by the faint sound of a shower running upstairs. The silence felt almost surreal, as if everything around him was nothing but a mere illusion, a stupid trick of his mind and eyes that had become accustomed to emptiness.

For months he'd done nothing but lying down, his eyes flipping from the ceiling, to the floor, to those four cramped walls that had become his home. Waiting for his body to heal, looking for a breath, a light, an essence that could make him feel alive. That could remind him of what moved him once.

But nothing came, confirming his catatonic state of a body without a soul.

His steps were slow, but almost heavy with suffering. He climbed up the stairs and a burning pain shot through his side. Everything was the same, yet so different since the last time he'd been there.

The loft in the hall had been dismantled - there was a library in its place. He remembered it used to belong to the Michael Warren he once was. The guy who died strangled by his own ambitions, his petty ideals, his pretentious aspirations.

Standing in the middle of the hall, his eyes shifted to the closed door of his old room. As if he could see through the glass, beyond the shadows, beyond what he once was and represented.

He shouldn't have come. He knew that. He shouldn't have exposed himself so much after Briggs' call.

But like a moth, he had been drawn there by the only source of his own destruction.

The source that almost ended up destroying even herself, that day, in a frantic and deadly car chase. Her car wrapped on itself five times before catching fire.

Just a little spark would've been enough for everything to end. To shatter in millions of pieces. But it had happened anyway, a long time ago. They had exploded in a thousand pieces, before he could even have a chance at curbing the cracks that Jesse's arrival had begun to form.

 _'You're more than just a passing fling.'_

The memory of one of their last talks - one of the few memories that he got left now - was blurry and foreign in his mind. It eventually faded when a noise tore him away from those ethereal images and his head spun around.

Paige was at the bathroom door, wrapped in a towel, her left arm covered in stitches and bandages. Her wet hair were a little shorter than the last time he'd seen her, but her eyes were just as hard. Fixed on him as if he were made of dirt that could contaminate her. Yet, she made no move to send him away. She kept dabbing her hair with a hand towel and openly stared at him. She didn't seem surprised, nor irritated by his presence. Just, unfazed.

The silence became still and thick.

Mike watched her carefully, taking in all the marks on her body. The purple bruise on her leg was gone, but it'd been replaced by scratches and nasty burns from where she'd crawled on the boiling asphalt to escape the car fire, the bandages on her arms were bloody and he counted more than Briggs had said, the pendant around her neck dangled over a hand shaped hematoma on her chest. He didn't want to know how it'd ended up there. That wasn't what he was there for.

Briggs had been clear, he needed to check up on her and clear the place, before anything else could happen. _Bring her safely to him._

He examined her until their eyes met.

It was a second, long enough so they could scrutinize each other and short enough to end in the blink of an eye when she walked past him without even brushing against his body, nor acknowledging his presence. Like he'd never been there and she was still alone in the house.

As if he were a ghost of a distant past. The ghost he felt he'd become long before then.

Suddenly, a noise almost startled him. His eyes followed the path to her room and when he blinked, the blurry image of _her bare and tanned back was sensually inviting him in to join her._

A flicker of an invisible light and _Paige was facing him now, her green eyes sparkling with desire and her lips trembling with a hidden smile._

Mike blinked again.

Everything disappeared and this time, the door to her room was wide shut.


	2. Part 1

**1\. Thorn**

* * *

In the shade of the room, Mike straightened his neck to stretch his sore muscles. He couldn't remember the last time he'd woken up and his eyes had met something different from the rancid color of rust and the greenish damp on the peeling walls of his shelter.

He sat down fully clothed with his hood pulled up, his hands tucked in his sweatshirt, one foot on the ground and his other leg curled under him. He stared at the horizon outside the window, lost in his thoughts, trying to figure out what to do next.

The sun was about to rise and soon it would be impossible for him to get away without arousing suspicion.

Yesterday had been eventful. It had marked a cruel anniversary. Five months had passed since they left Sylmar and their relationship had been a total decline from then on.

For a moment he wondered if Paige had realized that too when she'd decided to risk her life in that car chase, the day before. If that had been the reason why she'd so recklessly tracked Carlito down, without back up, and almost got killed in the process.

He looked back to her firm body, waggled only by the regular breathing of her sleep. She was on her stomach, facing away from him, the sheet resting on the soft curve of her bottom, her amber skin naked and bare before his eyes.

The absurdity of that night hung in the air, almost as a crime of their own.

Since freeing her, Paige had always treated him coldly and only spoken to him when necessary. Their idyllic relationship based on mutual trust and sincerity from the previous summer was too special to survive in a place like Graceland. Before they could even try to stop it, it became nothing but a distant memory of what they could have been.

* * *

 _Mike was almost on his way down the stairs when the door opened again. Turning on himself, he caught sight of her again._

 _Paige stood there in nothing more than a gray oversized t-shirt. Her hair was dripping wet, her bare feet left shiny footprints on the carpet. It was just for a brief moment, but she eyed him like a deer caught in the headlight, all over again._

 _They stared at one another for a few seconds. Her eyes welled up and filled with tears._

 _Suddenly, she erased the distance between them. Lunging toward him, she grabbed his face in her cold and aggressive hands and kissed him, hard, eagerly, leaving him stunned. His hands dangled at his sides, while she stood on her toes and clung to his lips, her eyes shut tight to try and hold back the tears that were flowing down her cheeks. His surprise was short-lived. The stillness and the numbness of his body were broken by the human touch he hadn't experienced in a long time, now._

 _In the midst of all, that kiss seemed to make sense. It felt almost right in its wrongness. There was no feeling, only physical contact. It was a kiss made of tongue and teeth, need and passion. Paige bit him harshly, choking back a sob. The iron taste of blood rushed over their tongues. Neither of them stopped._

 _When they parted, Mike realized they had both hardly breathed. Before he could put an end to it, Paige roughly pulled at his now long hair with one hand and forced his face against hers with the other. Neither of them came to their senses, but it didn't seem to matter, because he quickly let himself go and cupped her head in his hands. They desperately clung to each other as they got lost in a fierce kiss devoid of any grace, raw and harsh._ _Slowly, she wrapped her legs around him and they shuffled back into her room._

 _Her cheeks were drenched with tears that refused to stop when they stumbled back to her bed and fell on one another._

* * *

Maybe that was the point, the two of them were never meant to _be_.

Mike had to leave soon, it was getting too bright. He couldn't stay and he knew it. However, he had to leave something that marked his passing - perhaps a message on her phone. He knew she checked it first thing in the morning, because it was something he used to do every day too.

All it took was a sign and he could go. A sign that would make her finally leave Graceland and join the others in the safe house before Sid kept true to his word.

 _'I've seen where all your little friends sleep. I know their names. Now one by one, I have to put them down. Maybe you'll meet them at the pearly gates.'_

But when he reached out, his fingers didn't find her phone. Mechanically, without even realizing it, his palm rested on the smooth skin of her back. The pad of his fingers slowly traced the line of her spine, feeling each bump jutting out more than before. That night she'd felt skinnier and smaller in his arms, but the thought of her starving herself out hadn't crossed his mind until then.

Their sins changed them and now were being projected on their bodies, too.

His fingers slid all the way down to where the sheet rested on her skin. They trailed back up, brushing against her neck and then threaded through her now dry hair. They were soft, just like he remembered. The old Mike would have spent the entire night just stroking her silky locks. Instead, he let that long moment end, lowering his hand and bringing it back in the pocket of his hoodie.

His eyes glued back to the horizon where a first slice of sun was already starting to appear.

That physical contact hadn't brought any kind of tranquillity in him like it used to before - no butterflies in his stomach, nor glimpses of serenity.

Physical. That's what that night had been for both, he knew it. Paige had kissed him out of impulse. As if all she needed was Mike's mouth, anybody's mouth, to feel alive after almost dying. And he'd done the same, after being dead for so long - he'd sought shelter in her warm body to feel something. Anything.

But all night long, he'd sensed her mouth on him, her presence, her smell, her body… and nothing more.

In just a few short hours, the taste of her would fade from his lips, and nothing would be left of that sudden kiss that had started it all; not a fleeting memory would remain of that thorn in his side that he had freely chosen to come and remove that night. Forever.


	3. Part 2

**2\. Empty shards**

* * *

This time Mike snuck in from the back. The downstairs floor was equally dark and silent but a small glimmer of light peeked from the kitchen.

Two days had passed and she was still there. Charlie called him and ordered he went there again and forced her to join them at the safe house, at any cost. She hoped and knew that Mike could change her mind.

When he spotted her at the sink, her body seemed even smaller than it did two days before. She was standing with her back facing him, her curly hair overshadowing her face. She tucked a strand behind her ear and stared in front of her. Mike knew she had sensed his presence.

He took his hands out of his pockets and reached up to lower his hood.

"You shouldn't still be here. You should be with the others, at the safe house."

Paige laughed sarcastically. Mike eyed the carton of OJ peeking from the sink. His focus shifted to the greek yogurt sitting on the cupboard.

Shaking her head, she wiped her hands on a rag and turned around, leaning back on the cabinet.

"They're worried about you. You're a sitting duck."

Her unusually tortured fingers curled around a spoon and Mike watched the cream disappear behind her chapped lips. His dull eyes fixed on her.

"Really?"

The way she seemed to be more interested in her snack made him want to strangle her. He could've easily blamed Sid, nobody would have ever known.

"That's why I'm here." He continued to stare at her, refusing to snatch the box from her hand and drag her away kicking and screaming, like the old Mike would surely have done.

"You're wasting your time, I'm not going. I will not let a slimy worm kick me out of my house."

"I know. And that's why _I'm here_."

Her body stiffened and Mike knew he had struck a nerve. Maybe Sid wouldn't make Paige leave Graceland, but he would - the memory of what they had been and what got destroyed would.

He slowly walked over to the counter until just a few steps were separating them. "Look into my eyes."

But she didn't. If she had, she would've seen nothing but desolation and that would've darkened the black stain she had on her conscience.

"About the other night..."

Paige didn't let him finish. With a dry laugh, she dropped everything in the sink and hastily turned away from him.

"It didn't mean anything. It never happened. I don't sleep with murderers."

"No, you enjoy being one."

His words were left hanging in the air. Neither of them moved. Mike just stared at her back. Her hands curled at her sides in two white-knuckled fists.

"Don't you dare." She whipped around and dangerously approached him to hiss in his face. But even then she managed to keep her eyes low and focused on his stubbly cheeks, letting the truth blatantly speak for itself. "I don't go around burning poor innocent girls' bodies."

She had never openly reproached to him the one mistake she couldn't bring herself to forgive.

The one mistake that had costed a girl's life.

Mike had had no right to be wrong, that day. He was a fed. He couldn't live seizing the day. He couldn't make such a tragic mistake and then try to justify himself by pretending to be in love for the first time like a teenager. Not when the stakes were so high. She didn't care that he had done every possible and impossible thing to get her out of Sylmar.

 _She had left him no choice in there_ , but no one had forced him to make the wrong choice.

"No, it's true. You don't. You're much classier. A black widow. You prefer to send killers to do your dirty job."

Paige stared at him. Her expression didn't hide her pain as she absorbed every syllable of what he just said.

She had blindly trusted him, despite the events of the previous summer giving her every reason not to. But all the secrets, all the lies, had come to light and she'd felt betrayed, deceived by the one person who should have never made her feel like that - they had clouded her mind, damaged her heart, destroyed all that she was and what they were together.

And now there he was, back to haunting her again with his stupid pretense of doing the right thing.

She didn't need him. She knew what the right thing to do was. She had to stay in Graceland. She had to hunt down those monsters and clear the earth from them, avenge Lina and herself.

Sid would come to her and Paige would be waiting with her gun aimed his way, ready to blow his brains out. They all had to pay, whatever it took.

But Mike... all she needed to do was throwing him out. Tell him to go away, disappear forever.

When Paige recovered from the initial shock, she raised her hand ready to strike him in the face. Before she could do that, however, Mike went on full alert and grabbed her wrist, twisting it and yanking her to him. He leaned down to her and growled in her ear, avoiding any sort of eye contact.

"Am I not enough of a guy in a bag?"

Silence.

Paige turned her head, carefully watching him. Trying to read him, to see something that would give her the strength to react to those words as hard as stone. Eventually, she managed to do what she'd feared to do all along: she looked into his eyes to scroll through the emotions and feelings hidden behind, which for the first time ever were completely absent from his soul.

Only then she looked at him - _really_ looked at him, taking in the skin of his face, so tense that it could crack any second.

His eyes didn't even seem like they belonged to him anymore. They were glazed, as if he had no eyes because he was empty inside, having had everything that made a life worth living taken away from him.

A shell of a shattered man.

"You can't feel anything." She whispered, nodding unconsciously. Like in trance.

The iron grip on her arm loosened and Paige realized that neither a spark nor a tremor had popped between them. The spot where their bodies just touched wasn't covered in goose bumps, it was just as tepid as it was before.

"I forgive you." Mike ignored her statement, equally aware that there was no relationship to mend anymore, nothing to salvage, except her. It was too late for him. By now, Mike was simply gone and nothing would bring him back. But Paige - she still had a chance to save herself from oblivion.

"You shouldn't." She murmured. A glistening tear pinched the corner of her eye.

"I forgive you." He repeated, resolutely. "But it's not enough to make it all okay."

He pulled his hood back up and stepped back. Licking his lips, he put his hands back into his pockets, ready to leave.

Paige nodded to herself, turning around to subtly wipe at her eyes. She hated Mike with all she had - she hated him for Lina and she hated him for forgiving her.

"Pack your stuff, go away and don't look back. Alright?"

She nodded again, letting out a breath. When she passed by to go upstairs, his hand surprisingly wrapped around hers in a gentle grip.

Her perfume made him narrow his eyes and freshened his nostrils, as his front brushed against her back and he leaned in.

For a moment, Paige felt freed from the heaviness in her chest when Mike brushed her hair aside and pressed his cheek against hers. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply, trying to hold onto that moment in any way she could, aware that she'd lost.

That was the only closure they could have - that touch was the only thing he could give her, kissing her would be useless, she knew that too.

And just like that, when she opened her eyes again, Mike was gone.


End file.
